M. Guitrel’s face changed. Now, screwing up his little eyes till they were quite round, he looked like a rat who sees bacon in the larder. “You must know, my dear Guitrel,” continued the _préfet_, “that this business has nothing whatever to do with me. It is not I who appoint the bishops. I am not the keeper of the seals, nor the nuncio, nor the Pope. God be thanked!” And he began to laugh. “By the bye, on what terms do you stand with the nuncio?” “The nuncio, monsieur _le préfet_, looks upon me with friendliness, as a humble and dutiful servant of the Holy Father. But I do not flatter myself that he especially heeds me, in the humble station in which I have been placed and where I am content to remain.” “My dear abbé, if I speak to you about this affair—quite between ourselves, isn’t it?—it is because there is a question of sending a priest from my county town to Tourcoing. I hear on good authority that the name of Abbé Lantaigne, head of the high seminary, is being brought forward, and it is not impossible that I may be asked to supply confidential information about the candidate. He is your ecclesiastical superior. What do you think of him?” M. Guitrel answered, with downcast eyes: “It is certain that Abbé Lantaigne would bring to the episcopal see once sanctified by the apostle Loup both eminent piety and the precious gifts of eloquence. His Lenten sermons preached at Saint-Exupère have been justly admired for their logical arrangement of ideas and power of expression, and it is commonly recognised that some of the sermons would fall in no respect short of perfection, if there were present in them that unction, that perfumed and consecrated oil, if I may dare so to call it, which alone penetrates the heart.